Audiobook Review – The Ragpicker by Joel Dane, Narrated by Rupert Degas, Catherine Ho (4/5 stars)
Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Science Fiction/Post-Apocalyptic
Length: 8 hours and 15 minutes
Publisher: Dreamscape Lore
Release Date: July 23, 2024
ASIN: B0D5RCXMPJ
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: Audiobook from NetGalley for Review
Rating: 4/5 stars
“The Ragpicker—a man, bonded into a mysterious ‘secondskin’ that has prolonged his life after the digital apocalypse—wanders the lush, deserted Earth, haunted by failing avatars and fragmented texts. He’s searching for traces of his long-dead husband but his journey is interrupted by a girl, Ysmany, fleeing her remote village in order to save a baby orphaned by a military-grade secondskin, ‘The Server,’ the fanatical ruler of their town.
Together they cross the flourishing, treacherous landscape towards sanctuary. Yet the signals and static of the previous age echo in the Ragpicker’s mind and whisper in the girl’s dreams, drawing them toward the gap between map and territory—while offering precious hope.”
Series Info/Source: This is stand alone book. I got this on audiobook to review from NetGalley.
Thoughts: This was good. It is set in a post-apocalyptic world and we hear from 2 POVs, the first being The Ragpicker, a twitch who is a remnant of past times and feared by all, and Ysmeny, a girl who is fleeing her village in hopes of protecting a baby that was born there.
There is a portion that is told from a third POV in the second half of the book, which is a play that tries to explain how the apocalypse happens. I found this unnecessary, irritating to listen to, and confusing. This would have been better to include earlier in the book, or not at all. The reader doesn’t really need to know what happened in the past, they can piece it together from the present.
There are some things I really enjoyed about this book. I like how different the voices of Ysmeny and Ragpicker are at the beginning of the story and how Ysmeny’s voice changes as she understands the Ragpicker better and better. I loved the irony of the story as well. We start near Ysmeny’s home town and then go on a great journey only to find out that home may have been where the journey started.
The way the Ragpicker talks is lyrical and wandering and it was interesting to try to parse it. The landscape is bleak but also strangely peaceful. I enjoyed piecing together how the world ended as we stumbled through the world as it was in the story.
I struggled some with understanding what/who the Ragpicker was; I feel like I missed something here. I also didn’t quite understand the enemy they were fleeing from mid-book. Were these humans that had gone insane, twitches gone wrong, or something else? The book ended very abruptly, although that also felt somehow appropriate for the story.
In the end, this was different and I enjoyed it. However, I have always been strangely drawn to these post-apocalyptic survival stories about wandering desolate landscapes. If that’s your thing, you will probably enjoy this as long as you don’t mind some ambiguity.
I listened to this on audiobook and it was well done. There were two narrators; one for Ysmeny and one for the Ragpicker. They both did a good job narrating. My only complaint was the difference between the two narrators was incredibly jarring (maybe that was the point but it made for jagged transitions).
My Summary (4/5): Overall I enjoyed this adventure across the desolate post-apocalyptic landscape of a future Earth. The characters were well done and the books was well written. It does end a bit abruptly and somethings remained ambiguous throughout. If you enjoy strangely thoughtfully paced books about adventuring a post-apocalyptic landscape I would check this out.
